ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The U.S. Army has published the final photo of a combat photographer who captured on camera the blast that killed her in an accidental mortar explosion in Afghanistan nearly four years ago. The Army’s professional journal says the image illustrates how women are increasingly exposed to dangerous situations in the military.
The photograph of Spc. Hilda Clayton was published Monday in Military Review.
“Clayton’s death symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts,” Military Review wrote.
Clayton snapped the picture during a live-fire training exercise on July 2, 2013 in the Laghman Province, Afghanistan. The blast also killed four Afghan National Army soldiers. One of them was a photojournalist Clayton had partnered with to train.
Military Review noted that the explosion happened during a critical moment in the war, when it was important for U.S. and Afghan forces to work in partnership to stabilize the country.
“Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort,” the journal added.
Clayton, who was from Augusta, Georgia, was a member of the Fort Meade, Maryland-based 55th Signal Company, which is known as Combat Camera. She was 22.
Gordon Van Vleet, a spokesman for the Network Enterprise Command, which is the higher headquarters for the 55th Combat Camera Company she served under, said Clayton’s final photo was published with her family’s permission. Van Vleet said the family is declining to comment.
Combat Camera honored Clayton by naming an annual award for the best combat photography after her, Military Review wrote. Combat Camera soldiers are trained to take photos and video in any environment and accompany soldiers to document combat operations.
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All these recent deaths, 21, 23, 22 years of age…sad beyond words.
Less than 1% of Americans serve their country.
The thing is that they aren’t even serving their country. They are well-trained and well-equipped, but as all our wars since WWII have been political and not even strategic wars of choice, our combat troops really serve the same purpose as peasant armies did from the Medieval Age up through the 18th Century - expendables who are dying for anything other than the security of the U.S.
We need to reinstitute a national service requirement with options for participants to serve in the military, something akin to the CCC or something like the VISTA program with deferments granted only to those people in college studying fields that would be useful in the latter two. Make it a two year commitment that must be completed between the ages of 18 and 24. Anyone who chooses to attend college after this commitment will be a better student for it.
Jesus the AP is bad at its job. While the preposition “of” can be used to mean “owned by” or in this case “taken by”, the immediate implication, given the photograph that is attached to the article both here and on other sites is that person being struck by the blast is Spc. Hilda Clayton. That this is a picture “of Spc. Hilda Clayton” being killed.
It is not. That is not Spc. Hilda Clayton. This is a photograph by Spc. Hilda Clayton, of the moment right before the pictured Afghan army member dies.
The link below shows a second picture, taken by an Afghani photographer (also killed in the blast), which appears to show part of Spc. Hilda Clayton’s hand and camera.
It’s never a surprise when an AP story is poorly edited. It’s a surprise to read one that isn’t. That was true even back in the Eighties, in contrast with most of big metro dailies of the time, where ambiguity like this would have been caught and fixed by competent editors and proofreaders. The AP was uniformly mediocre then and is worse now.
This is a photograph of Spc. Hilda Clayton